


Mutagenic

by Jemisard



Category: The Avengers (2012), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 16:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jemisard/pseuds/Jemisard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two men discuss mutations and what they mean to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutagenic

While Bruce didn’t have a network anything like that of Tony Stark, what he had was an ego smaller than the combined mass of New Zealand. When he met other scientists, he remembered them, their fields and he respected what they did, even if what they did seemed pointless to him.

Plenty of people thought gamma radiation was a pointless field of study, so he respected that people had differing opinions.

Deep Purple blasted over the PA system as Bruce continued to type away at the screen, the text box reflected in the lenses of his glasses.

>Mr Green: But would the mutagenic properties of radiation tie into the unstable and nonhereditary nature of natural mutation?

>Cat in a Hat: Theoretically. But I’m a biologist, not a radiologist, Jim.

>Mr Green: Thanks, Bones. It is just a theoretical discussion.

>Cat in a Hat: Nothing is theoretical with you, Green. Not when radiation is involved. I understand the pain your condition brings you, but further experimentation is really not a good idea.

>Mr Green: Everything’s in lab conditions. I’m not on live trials, I’ve just been running simulations.

>Cat in a Hat: That would take a lot of processing power. You’re either hooked into an illegal powerfeed or, more likely, you’ve finally stopped running around the world and moved into that abominable tower Stark likes to pretend isn’t a monument to the ego.

>Mr Green: It’s not that bad. I’ve been to Dubai.

>Cat in a Hat: Green...

>Mr Green: It doesn’t matter. It’s all simulation and theory and then blood tests. Nothing has ever panned out in blood testing to be worth moving up to live trials.

>Cat in a Hat: Bruce. We both know the effects of this. Your condition is stable. I think you should find what blessing you can in that and rather than fixating on removing the gamma radiation and the damage it has wrought to your body and mind, begin to seek ways to alleviate the rage which drives your alter ego. A tragedy happened. You reached and fell, but you have fallen no further. You could yet.

>Cat in a Hat has signed off.

Bruce closed the window and pushed his glasses up on top of his head to pinch the bridge of his nose. He knew the point Henry was making. He’d seen interviews where the man had tried to make light of his condition as such a public, unconcealable mutant. Where he had played up the plus sides of his continuing ‘evolution’.

Hulk had never changed. And it was only in his mind he so easily conceded the name that the world had granted his alter ego. His rage manifest.

He wasn’t thirty five and desperately trying to undo what had happened so he could back to his life, his girlfriend, his career. He was in his forties, he had stopped seriously looking for a cure years earlier and he didn’t remember what it was to have family, friends, a lover or anyone who actually knew that Bruce wasn’t his given name.

Henry lived in a school. He had friends who were mutants, though Bruce didn’t know any of them. He had friends who weren’t scared of him. No matter what his body did, his mind was still Henry, erudite and charming. His best friend still threw himself onto his back and children likened him more to the cookie monster than a nightmare bully.

He closed the laptop’s lid and went back to his simulations, pointlessly running numbers and algorithms and letting Gun ‘n’ Roses ease his thoughts for the moment.


End file.
